Although every season has it’s wonderful and not as wonderful bits, summer is generally our favourite… lots of time at the beach and outdoors in general, celebrating Christmas with the ones we love most, the best fresh mangoes, stone fruit and berries, (to name a few) and time off work to just be a family and enjoy eachother. It’s good for the soul and comes just when you need it the most. Here’s what parts of some of our days looked like… (And can we just pretend November is summer because it felt like summer to me!)

So this page has really turned into a bi-monthly highlight reel…. which is fine by me, I like a bit of order in my life! And it takes me that long to get around to posting anything with this busy little two year old around. (I don’t need to re-iterate the word ‘highlight’ do I? This is just the fun, semi-photogenic stuff. There’s so much mess and lots of tears behind the scenes that doesn’t get posted. But generally, life is GOOD, so let’s celebrate that!)

So here are our September/October highlights, feat. lots of Arch running around in his little palm tree swimmers, roaming the garden, and his 2nd birthday! It was a bittersweet thing having that day come around in what felt like a blink. But we are so proud of our boy and loved celebrating him reaching this milestone. Reece are pretty minimal in our approach to many aspects of our lives, so although we had a party for Arch, it was very low-key with a family backyard barbecue, home made cake and pretty much no decorations.

We totally went overboard with the presents though. With all the families gifts’ combined it was too much to give him in one day. We’ve learned from this though and will be way more minimal in future. Kids love the simple things in life! And to be honest, our morning out at the beach before the gifts and festivities was probably his most favourite part of the day. Oh and his cake… this boy is a BIG cake fan. It was one of his earliest words and he has been very passionate about it ever since!

Anyway, so we are applying the ‘less is more’ philosophy to gifts this Christmas… we have bought Arch ONE toy, a couple of books and a few items of clothing that he needed. We are trying to be more sustainably minded with our purchases, buying less in general, and more of things we know will get used time and time again until they’re worn out, or that will last to be passed on to someone else. (it’s totally a work in progress though!) Because we have waaaayyyyy too much stuff in this world! Something I could go on about but I will leave it at that for now, because IT’S CHRISTMAS! And you didn’t come here to hear me rant about consumerism, so MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Wishing you and yours a Christmas season filled with peace and joy, and THE BEST New year yet! xx

So it’s October apparently! And when I look through these photos, July & August already feel like a long time ago. Arch still had his little baby face then, but it has disappeared in the last two months and now we’re parents to someone who looks very much like a little boy.

It has been a challenging few months in some ways. I know it may not look like it, with all the photos of smiley faces and trips to the beach, but I feel like I’m still figuring a lot out when it comes to parenting. And to doing life well.

A constant lesson for me at the moment is learning to slow down and enjoy life, rather than thinking about what needs to get done and what I need to plan for ahead. When you are so used to busyness and the satisfaction of getting things ticked off the to-do list, sometimes stopping and playing with a two year old isn’t the most stimulating way to spend your time. I never imagined I would feel that way as a mum and it’s not something I’m super proud of. But I’m on the journey of letting go of my agendas more often to enjoy his, and finding that there is real joy in that when I am wholehearted and present.

This is something I actually have to make a conscious effort to change on a daily basis. Because it’s so easy to get caught up in stress and not see your way out of it. So now, if I feel I’m getting caught up and tense, or a bit snappy at Arch because he’s disrupting what I’m trying to get done, I try to remember that he is the most important part of my day, and stuff will get done, even if not right now. Of course, I still take the stress train way too far sometimes! Ha! but I’m ok with that because it’s a process and I know getting upset about my mistakes isn’t going to do Arch or I any favours.

This is such a special time and I don’t want to spend it constantly distracted or look back on it when our boy has left home and wish I had paid more attention. When I put it in perspective, it’s something I can’t not work on. It’s just too precious.

Another challenging part of this season has been having Reece living away from us during the week for work. We just miss him so much! And I certainly feel the pressure of parenting more when he is away. But it’s another thing that is helping me to remember to make the most of the time I have with the ones I love most, and to be thankful and focus on the good stuff!

We have been loving living in Australia since we moved back here in April. The past few months have gone so fast with settling in, setting up life and business again and spending time with family. We feel really blessed to be spending this season living at my parents’ house which is on acreage on the Northern NSW coast. It has the best of both worlds with paddocks, space and quiet and then the beach and town just a few minutes away.

I grew up here and spent so much of my childhood roaming our property with my brothers and sister, building tree houses, making perfume from lemon myrtle leaves, setting up fruit stalls on the side of the road, and making up outside games from anything and everything we could find. It’s pretty special to be able to share this place with Archer and he is loving it as much as we did. His favourite things have been picking citrus fruits and strawberries, riding on the quad with Bobo (my dad who has roots in Papua New Guinea. Bobo is the Milne Bay name for grandfather), running around at the beach and going out for “coppees” with daddy (babycino!)

I can’t believe it’s almost September, and our boy will soon be turning two. For now, here’s a little bit of what we got up to in May and June. Highlights of our July and August to come soon x

I am a total sucker for most homemade or handmade sweet things, but these days, I try to make cleaner versions of everything! I don’t stick to any strict rules, we are not vegan or paleo, and thankfully there are no allergies in our household (just a bit of good old gluten intolerance). Generally with my baking (or raw “baking”) I just try to make things gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free wherever possible. And if I can’t do all three, sometimes two is good enough!

Here’s a recipe for some little treats that I came up with by accident. I had some spare mixture left over from a raw slice and decided to spoon it into silicon muffin moulds, then added some homemade raspberry chia jam and baked them, and they actually turned out pretty great! For my second batch I left half without jam, then added organic dark chocolate instead, once they were cooked. Archer really loves the chia jam ones, he’s been saying “biccie, biccie!” a lot! I’d much rather he has these than something out of a packet so I think they’ll be a regular in our house! I had heaps of fun styling and shooting these too so I think there will be more recipes to come!

Recipe below

INGREDIENTS

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup almond meal

1 cup rolled oats (I used GF)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp solid coconut oil

Pinch of salt

Jam of choice (I used homemade raspberry chia jam)

100g melted dark chocolate

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180C (fan forced)

Add all ingredients except jam & chocolate to food processor & mix at medium speed until they come together to form a soft dough.

Add more honey and/or coconut oil if mixture is too dry or crumbly.

Press mixture into silicone muffin moulds or cupcake cases, at about half a cm thickness, pressing a little of the mixture up the sides to create a slight cup shape.

For jam version: Add approximately 1 dessert spoon of jam to half of your cups

For chocolate version: Leave cups empty for now

Cook for 12 minutes or until light golden brown.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes in cases

For chocolate version: Once cooled, add approximately 1 dessert spoon of melted chocolate to each cup. Optional: add a few cacao nibs per cup

After living in Christchurch, New Zealand for the past 4.5 years, Reece and I left our beautiful second home 3 months ago to return to Australia. We had only planned to live there for a year at the most, but plans changed along the way and we kept extending our stay. Our house renovation even kept us there through my first pregnancy and our babe Archer’s first 18 months, when in any other circumstance, we would’ve packed our bags and headed home. It was an incredibly special season in our lives. An incredibly hard season at times too, but all the good stuff is worth going through a bit of pain for. NZ will always be such a special place for us. Here are a few images of our last few months there.